Common Technical Problems

This thread is still being updated with the latest issues. Please check everything here before contacting support or posting in this forum.

If these answers don't solve your problem, check the forum posts first, using the forum search, or using a google search with the phrase site:http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/support-and-bug-reports in the search.

Support is overwhelmed with queries at the moment, so posts in this forum will likely be answered by players unless many people are having the same error.

I’m unable to download the game.

Check your firewall and virus scan - Your best bet in this situation however is to download the game on another connection, as your Internet Service Provider may be sending out a cached, outdated version of the file.

I’m unable to patch the game.

Received a packet that is too large to deserialize
A player posted this in a related thread:

It looks like I fixed my problem.
It was because Windows updated my wi-fi drivers.
I reverted to older ones and game is now downloading.

We're going to investigate further and see if we can stop this happening, but until then, using a wired connection or reverting your wifi drivers should let you patch!

The Patcher says "Installation Directory must be on a local hard drive"
Force the installer to run with administrator privileges.
1. Locate the MSI installer file that you downloaded.
2.While holding down the Shift key on the keyboard, right-click on the MSI, then choose Copy As Path.
3. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories.
4. Right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator. This should open a command prompt window, labeled "Administrator:".
5. In the Command Prompt window, type msiexec /i (you need to enter a single space after "/i").
6. Right-click in the Command Prompt window, then choose Paste. This should paste the path to the MSI file that you copied in Step 2 above.
7.Press Enter to run the command.
Props to Zubie for posting their solution.

The Patching stops when almost completeThe last few files of the patcher are outside the pack file. This probably means that due to a firewall, virus scan, or administrator privileges, the game can’t place those files. Try enabling exceptions in your security software for Path of Exile’s client, and running the game as an administrator. If that still doesn’t work, try moving your Path of Exile folder to another location.

The patch file is too smallThis is usually caused by your internet provider giving you the incorrect file. Your first step would be to run the Pack Check, followed by patching the game again. If doing this then patching the game again doesn't help, this usually means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is sending you a corrupted copy of the game files that they have cached, or your virus scan is preventing the game from patching. Downloading the game on another system and copying it over would be your best bet. Please email chris@grinding-gear.com with the name of your ISP, and we'll try and figure out which provider has bad cached copies of the game.

Edit: PDoughboy has come up with a guide on how to work around some of the problems caused by your ISP. You can find this guide here.

The Patcher is unable to connectCheck your connection, and make sure you’re still able to connect to pathofexile.com. You may need to contact your Internet Service Provider.

The Patcher stops with an error at a random pointThe patcher will continue from where it left off, the % value it shows is the remaining download. This may happen if you lose connection for a second, but should go through eventually. If it is too frequent, check your firewall, virus scan, and if that still doesn’t help contact your internet provider, or download on another connection.

The patcher says “Could not overwrite executable with new patched executable or "Timed out waiting for patching process to exit"
Go into your Path of Exile folder, usually in Program Files/Grinding Gear Games/Path of Exile.
Make sure you have a file called Client.tmp
Remove your Client.exe file, and rename Client.tmp to be Client.exe
That should solve the problem!
If this happens every time you patch, you may want to check that your firewall or virus scan aren't causing problems for the game client.

The Patcher freezes and crashes every time.
This is usually caused by Pack Corruption. Your first step would be to run the Pack Check, followed by patching the game again. If that fails, you’ll need to remove the content.ggpk file and reinstall the game. If a fresh copy of the game is still having errors, this usually means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is sending you a corrupted copy of the game files that they have cached, or your virus scan is preventing the game from patching. Downloading the game on another system and copying it over would be your best bet. Please email chris@grinding-gear.com with the name of your ISP, and we'll try and figure out which provider has bad cached copies of the game.

Edit: PDoughboy has come up with a guide on how to work around some of the problems caused by your ISP. You can find this guide here.

The client won’t load.

It stays on the Loading screen indefinitelyThere is probably an error you can’t see behind the Path of Exile window. In full-screen mode, you will need to Alt-tab to see what this error says. Chances are, you’ll find that your pack file has become corrupted, and you’ll need to run the Pack Check

Nothing happens when I click “Launch”Check that your virus scan or firewall isn’t interrupting the game, and check your processes (Found in the Ctrl-Alt-Delete menu) to see if the game is still loading in the background. If it looks like nothing is happening, try running the Pack Check.

I get an error message when I run the game.

“The protocol is out of date”Pack Check and potentially reinstall. This error technically means you need to patch. It also happens if you have a virus that has infected Client.exe

"Error: failed to initialise"
This is usually related to the language profile of your keyboard.
Switching it to US/UK English, removing the other language profile then adding it again should fix this crash. Thanks to Enoki for this!

D3D device errorCheck your graphics card can handle Pixel Shader 3.0
Check that your PC isn’t defaulting to the Integrated card, which can usually be done by right-clicking on the Path of Exile shortcut and choosing to run the game with the dedicated graphics card.
You may have an old production_config.ini file in Documents/My Games/Path of Exile. Remove this file and try loading the game again.
You may also need to run the installer a second time, and check that you have the correct installation of Direct X.

A message relating to game files.This is often caused by a corrupted pack file. Your first step would be to run the Pack Check. If that fails, you’ll need to remove the content.ggpk file and reinstall the game. If a fresh copy of the game is still having errors, this usually means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is sending you a corrupted copy of the game files that they have cached. Downloading the game on another system and copying it over would be your best bet. Please email chris@grinding-gear.com with the name of your ISP, and we'll try and figure out which provider has bad cached copies of the game.

Edit: PDoughboy has come up with a guide on how to work around some of the problems caused by your ISP. You can find this guide here.

This is often caused by your computer running out of RAM, or a corrupted packfile. See the solutions directly below.

I get an error message and a crash after playing the game for a while.

EOUTOFMEMORY or Unable to Map File or Unable to MapViewOfFile
This usually occurs when your game file runs out of ram, common on PCs with low ram or running 32bit versions of windows. Running the game with Texture Quality set to Medium usually fixes this, though having less than 4gb of ram will cause problems after changing areas a number of times. We will improve the memory recovery system in future.
You can also reduce the rate of these crashes slightly by adding -gc 2 to the end of your Path of Exile shortcut target, as shown here:

Instructions for Steam Users

You can enable the -gc 2 switch by right clicking Path of Exile in your Steam Library and selecting Properties -> General Tab -> Set Launch Options. Here you can add -gc 2.

If you are still having frequent crashes, you can turn your Texture Quality down even further by manually editing the production_Config.ini file. You can find this file in your Documents/My Games/Path of Exile folder. If you find the line texture_quality=1 and change the number to 2, you'll reduce the texture quality even further. Note that this may make it much harder to see some enemy spell effects.

A message relating to game files.This is often caused by a corrupted pack file. Your first step would be to run the Pack Check. If that fails, you’ll need to remove the content.ggpk file and reinstall the game. If a fresh copy of the game is still having errors, this usually means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is sending you a corrupted copy of the game files that they have cached. Downloading the game on another system and copying it over would be your best bet. Please email chris@grinding-gear.com with the name of your ISP, and we'll try and figure out which provider has bad cached copies of the game.

When I load the game, I get a message saying “Unable to render water”
Your graphics card may not have certain tech required to render some parts of the game. It may not work at all, or you may simply not see any water. Different drivers for your graphics card can let you play, though there will still be issues.

I frequently get an explosion of graphical glitches, followed by a crash.

This will happen if your graphics card is overheating. Monitor your card temperature, and make sure Vsync is on if it is getting too hot. Cleaning out your PC fans and manually capping framerate will also drastically reduce card temperatures.

I get disconnected while running the game

While changing areasCheck the message you’re getting after the disconnect. If you get a message about “Terrain Generation is out of sync”, this is an error we’re working on fixing in the immediate future. Ctrl-clicking the door will let you create a new area that doesn’t have this crash.
This can also happen if your game spends a very long time on a loading screen, more than 40 seconds. You’ll need to lower display settings to let the game load faster.

At random intervalsThis is a problem with your connection to our servers. Try changing your Gateway between America, Europe and Singapore. If all three are still resulting in disconnects, you’ll likely have to check the state of your router and contact your ISP about your connection problems.

I’m getting frequent framerate spikes while playing.

We’re still working on preloading some effects, so you should cast skills like Summon Skeletons that have load-intensive effects before you enter combat. All monster effects will be preloaded in future.
If you have regular framerate spikes, every 2 seconds, then you’ll need to updated your graphics card drivers and adjust your driver settings.

I’m getting a client crash when I enter a specific area or cast a specific spell.

Check if other players are reporting the same area as a problem. If not, you have Pack Corruption. Your first step would be to run the Pack Check. If that fails, you’ll need to remove the content.ggpk file and reinstall the game. If a fresh copy of the game is still having errors, this usually means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is sending you a corrupted copy of the game files that they have cached. Downloading the game on another system and copying it over would be your best bet. Please email chris@grinding-gear.com with the name of your ISP, and we'll try and figure out which provider has bad cached copies of the game.

My UI is blurry and has a low resolution.

Your graphics card is likely overriding the game’s Mipmap settings. Go into your graphics card driver options (found near the PC clock) and find settings related to performance speed or mipmap - Turning the texture quality or mipmap quality to high or removing the override will return the game to normal.

My UI has the wrong images, for example the Health orb being blue.

This can happen when your ISP gives you a cached, broken version of the images used for the UI. If you patch the game on another connection or through a VPN, this should fix the problem. You may also need to run the Pack Check through this VPN.

Like many people here , my login screen is frozen , i played pretty smooth , then i log out , and it freeze , restart computer , enter game again and login screen freeze forever .
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/73455

So with the D3D Problem. I have a AMD Radeon HD 6950 video card and I've tried everything I have found on the forums and the only thing I haven't tried is the setting it to a dedicated graphics card but my computer doesn't have on board graphics.

My issue is that I get disconnected ALL the time. When it happens I get this message: An unexpected disconnection occured.

The disconnection happens at random interval so I read this:

"At random intervals
This is a problem with your connection to our servers. Try changing your Gateway between America, Europe and Singapore. If all three are still resulting in disconnects, you’ll likely have to check the state of your router and contact your ISP about your connection problems".

The thing is, there is nothing wrong with my router, I have been in contact with my ISP and there is nothing wrong with my connection. I can play other games online just fine. And my friend whom I was supposed to play with have the same exact problem, and we dont even have the same type of router or IPS. (I have a DSL line 10/1, and he has fiber (100/100).

The problem still occurs when changing gateway from Europe to America or Singapore.

What could the problem be?

I really would like to play the game, but when I get disconnected every minute or so it's not possible..

My issue is that I get disconnected ALL the time. When it happens I get this message: An unexpected disconnection occured.

The disconnection happens at random interval so I read this:

"At random intervals
This is a problem with your connection to our servers. Try changing your Gateway between America, Europe and Singapore. If all three are still resulting in disconnects, you’ll likely have to check the state of your router and contact your ISP about your connection problems".

The thing is, there is nothing wrong with my router, I have been in contact with my ISP and there is nothing wrong with my connection. I can play other games online just fine. And my friend whom I was supposed to play with have the same exact problem, and we dont even have the same type of router or IPS. (I have a DSL line 10/1, and he has fiber (100/100).

The problem still occurs when changing gateway from Europe to America or Singapore.

What could the problem be?

I really would like to play the game, but when I get disconnected every minute or so it's not possible..

My issue is that I get disconnected ALL the time. When it happens I get this message: An unexpected disconnection occured.

The disconnection happens at random interval so I read this:

"At random intervals
This is a problem with your connection to our servers. Try changing your Gateway between America, Europe and Singapore. If all three are still resulting in disconnects, you’ll likely have to check the state of your router and contact your ISP about your connection problems".

The thing is, there is nothing wrong with my router, I have been in contact with my ISP and there is nothing wrong with my connection. I can play other games online just fine. And my friend whom I was supposed to play with have the same exact problem, and we dont even have the same type of router or IPS. (I have a DSL line 10/1, and he has fiber (100/100).

The problem still occurs when changing gateway from Europe to America or Singapore.

What could the problem be?

I really would like to play the game, but when I get disconnected every minute or so it's not possible..

I'm in the same boat, and as a closed beta tester, this problem is new to me as of january 25th

My issue is that I get disconnected ALL the time. When it happens I get this message: An unexpected disconnection occured.

The disconnection happens at random interval so I read this:

"At random intervals
This is a problem with your connection to our servers. Try changing your Gateway between America, Europe and Singapore. If all three are still resulting in disconnects, you’ll likely have to check the state of your router and contact your ISP about your connection problems".

The thing is, there is nothing wrong with my router, I have been in contact with my ISP and there is nothing wrong with my connection. I can play other games online just fine. And my friend whom I was supposed to play with have the same exact problem, and we dont even have the same type of router or IPS. (I have a DSL line 10/1, and he has fiber (100/100).

The problem still occurs when changing gateway from Europe to America or Singapore.

What could the problem be?

I really would like to play the game, but when I get disconnected every minute or so it's not possible..

This x1000

I've been playing 20-something different games online for the last two years on the same router with the same ISP, and i've never had any trouble. so many people are telling the same story. you guys should really look in to giving us a better solution than "its your ISP's fault"